


we built a life remaining true

by janie_tangerine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: (EVERYONE IS AN OLD MARRIED COUPLE IN HERE), F/M, Old Married Couple, Past Abuse, Post - A Dance With Dragons, Post-Canon, REALLY you don't even imagine how much, The Night's Watch, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-05 00:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11566629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: in which Theon Greyjoy, 1000th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, has a fairly good day.





	we built a life remaining true

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gvlldfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gvlldfish/gifts).



> this was written for this year's theonexchange; I merged two prompts, _2\. Theon as Lord Commander of the Watch_ and _Theon and Jeyne being safe and happy, doesn't have to be shippy_ but... I made it shippy because it wanted to be. It's... ABSOLUTELY never gonna happen in canon but hey, we can all dream, right? Right. The title is from a Dropkick Murphys song and nothing belongs to me, as if. I hope you like it!

“Wait, are you telling me these are all _volunteers_?”

Satin Flowers shrugs as in to say, _so it seems_ , and turns back to look at the two hundred people that were just let into the yard.

“None of them has a record and they said they all came together.”

“ _Two hundred_ of them?”

“From what I gathered, it was some twenty of them who came from King’s Landing, but then they found more along the way. I mean, it’s not that surprising, if you ask me.”

Theon stares long and hard at Jon’s former squire, who’s now a steward in his own right. “Not that surprising?”

Satin shrugs again. “Sure, it’s cold and miserable and we all dress in black and we’re stuck here until we die, but the Others aren’t around anymore, not since – not since Jon made sure of it.”

 _Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, those dragons and everyone else who hadn’t died already_ , Theon thinks.

“And since he did make sure that we were provided for… coming here means eating every day and having a roof on your head as long as the winter lasts. There could be worse options.”

Theon looks down at his hands, all gloved in black, and at the left one where there are just three fingers visible.

Sometimes it still hurts to look at it.

Good thing he has more pressing matters to deal with.

“Fair. Very well, tell Grenn to let them in and I can speak with… as many as I can, I guess. Possibly all. I don’t want to do this tomorrow, too.”

“There’s – there’s a few girls as well.”

Theon shrugs. “The Wall’s full of spearwives. I’m sure we can find them some place.”

“Anything else, my lord?”

It’s been six years.

Theon sometimes still feels the creeps when someone calls him like _that_ , but given where he ended up, he’s learned to make peace with it.

“Send Wex up here if you find him, I’ll be downstairs as soon as I can.”

“We’ll be waiting.”

Satin leaves quickly after that, and Theon goes back to check the few ravens he had left to read when the steward came in to inform him that they had _two hundred volunteers downstairs_.

Two hundred. Gods, he’s _this_ tempted to send Snow a raven asking him if he ever got that many, then he thinks better of it – it’s not that they haven’t found an understanding since they met again for the first time _after_ Ramsay and after Jon died and came back to life, and it’s not that these days when they have the chance they don’t snipe at each other for old times’s sake and because (they both admitted to each other once) it felt familiar. But it just seems _way_ too mean, and they aren’t children anymore.

He checks the first. The Iron Bank – he throws it away. It’s just the umpteenth list of what interest they will have to pay back when winter is over, and he gets one every two months, more or less. He can do without.

The one from Winterfell is short – Sansa confirms that her sister’s marriage to Robert Baratheon’s bastard has gone over splendidly and she’s really glad _she_ is not the one in her place. Soon she can step off as regent, which she’s also very happy about. She asks after Jeyne.

Theon puts it away – he can reply later. The one from Pyke is from his sister, but it’s nothing of import either, just the usual news and her asking if he’s ever going to come back for a visit.

 _Maybe_ , he thinks, but not now.

The door opens and Wex comes in, handing him another raven without much ceremony.

“Huh. This is new?”

Wex nods, not looking too impressed with his deduction.

“King’s Landing. Of course. Listen, I need you to find Dolorus Edd, along with whichever spearwife is in charge at Long Barrow and send them here, they’d probably know best if they need more people or if I have to send them somewhere else.”

Wex nods, inclining his head to the left.

 _Anything else_?

“No, I’m good. Tell that group who was going to the godswood to take their vows to avoid coming back _after_ sunset, I can’t afford to send someone looking out for them like last month when they got fucking lost.”

Wex snorts and nods again before running out of his room.

Theon adjusts the black cloak on his shoulders – he still can’t fucking believe _he_ is wearing it or that _he_ will go down in history as the 1000th commander of the bloody Night’s Watch but at this point he’s just going to try and make the best of it.

 _If only I had known_ , he thinks bitterly, _I’d have gone to the Wall a lot sooner_.

Too bad that he can’t, but – fine. It’s not the time to think back on decisions he cannot change, and if it means he’s stuck here until his old age, well, there’s worse.

There’s _always_ worse.

Also, at least, these days it’s entirely more tolerable than it used to be before the Long Night, so overall, he has no reason to complain.

He opens the raven as he goes downstairs – slow, walking _always_ hurts even if the more time passes, the less it does.

 _I hope you’re not having too much fun with my old duties_ , _but I’m told you’re doing fine, which is good enough for me. If you need more men please send word, the last conspiracy to do away with me filled the dungeons enough that there’s barely any space for common thieves._

Theon does _not_ envy Jon his current job, he thinks. Not at all. Not even Daenerys Targaryen did – she could have had it, and she’s in Essos running her khalasar instead. Smart thinking on her side, most probably.

 _I will try to come and visit as soon as I can make time for it. Good luck. Say hello to the others from me_.

He pockets the raven – it’s not too much to ask, after all – and then he heads straight for the mess hall, it’s only place big enough to sort out new recruits these days.

“ _Commander_ ,” Pyp tells him without an ounce of deference the moment he walks in.

“ _Ranger_ ,” Theon quips back. “Snow sends his regards, by the way.”

“Oh, _his regards_. Is he going to send his royal _self_ here at some point, or does he only send the regards?”

“He says he’s trying. Give him time, from what I gathered we’ll get men he arrested after stopping the third conspiracy on his life that I know of.”

“ _What_? Another? Haven’t people learned that he learned his lesson after the first?”

“Obviously not. Well, it’s one more garrison filled with recruits.”

“Fair enough. Do I tell Grenn to open the doors?”

“Wait.”

He shrugs off the cloak, then sits down at Lord Commander’s high chair – it’s warm, and he’s covered in black leather, he won’t die of cold just yet. He’s been told that he actually cuts a striking figure whenever he does this – his hair never quite turned dark again even if he gained back enough of his muscles and his face filled out again, but, apparently, the white hair does make an impression, coupled with all the damned black he’s wearing.

Well, he won’t be the one complaining about that, he supposes.

(He still can’t believe that people actually voted _him_ in the first place for this damned job – he only took his vows because he thought it was the only way he could _not_ be done for at least as far as men were concerned, and because he wanted to die doing something useful for the realm if he really had to. He hadn’t thought he’d survive the war, he hadn’t thought that _he_ ’d have ended up being one of the few people with a shred of military knowledge after Snow went beyond the Wall with dragons and an army to fight the damned wights, he hadn’t thought he’d end up having to make sure people organized their defenses because no one else was there to do it, he hadn’t thought _all_ the younger recruits would have ended up _impressed_ with him and with how he managed to fire burning arrows at the living dead even if he lacked too many fingers – _but not enough to stop him from using a bow._ Sometimes Theon thinks, _you tried to take that from me and you couldn’t, I hope you can see it from whichever of the Seven Hells you’re in_. He hadn’t known Snow would say he had no intention to take back his job as Lord Commander after slaying those dragons. He hadn’t known that most of the people who hadn’t gone with Jon would vote for _him_ – he hadn’t even put forward his own name.

When the results had been clear, Jon had just smirked and told him good fucking luck, and thrown the coat at him.

Theon _still_ can’t believe it actually happened, but _didn’t he think he could rise high enough in the Watch if he joined it, before Ramsay made sure he couldn’t, once upon a time_?)

“Right. Let them in. One by one, please.”

“Got it,” Grenn shouts back, and then he opens the door. Pyp sits next to him with his book where he keeps track of who goes where.

The first kid who comes in can’t be older than six and ten and is obviously on the brink of starvation.

 _It’s going to be a long day_ , Theon thinks.

\--

It _is_ a long day.

By the time everyone is more or less sorted, Theon can barely see straight and Pyp looks pretty much in the same conditions. Dolorus Edd and whichever spearwife he brought with have left with all the women in the group and a few of the men, the rest have been sorted through another ten garrisons or so.

“How many?” Theon groans.

“Two hundred and twenty-six,” Pyp replies. “Wow. I don’t think it was two hundred of us at Eastwatch when I arrived. Or maybe it was, but not much more.”

“And we’re getting the conspirators a month from now.”

“Should we even take conspirators?”

“We should take _anyone_ ,” Theon sighs. “We’ll just separate them as much as we can, I suppose.” Sitting for the entire day wasn’t a very good idea – his legs feel numb and his feet do, too, and it’s never a good damned idea to let them get like that.

“Shit,” he mutters as he stands up. His feet are hurting, _a lot_ , and of course he forgot to put that ointment Sam Tarly recommended him before he left for King’s Landing in the places where his toes should have been.

He doesn’t resent Snow for making Sam Archmaester, not really, not when they’re friends, and he’s not going to resent either of them because they were less stupid than he and Robb were (mostly _him_ ), but damn it, they can’t live on what little knowledge wildling healers have anymore.

“Anything wrong, _commander_?” Satin asks, joining them with a few ravens in his hands.

“What’s that?”

“Messages from the other garrisons.”

“Right. No, nothing unusual. But I think I will turn in now, tell Wex to bring my dinner upstairs. I need to _stop_ sitting for this long.”

The other three nod in understanding – they _know_ , and it’s not as if he can hide it, since he was plenty _worse_ when he got here. “Just, I don’t care how you choose to spend your evening but if one of you can go over those recruits again and find out if _any_ of them is from Oldtown or _would_ like to go to Oldtown on the Watch’s dime, and if there are any let me know because _I_ need a maester and we definitely will need one or two, given how many people are coming in.”

“On it,” Pyp says, “I noted where most of them came from. The ones who’d say, anyhow. Take it easy and say hello to the lady from all of us.”

“Will do. By the way, I know you know, but if _any_ of you wants to bring over _ladies_ from Mole’s Town or whatever I won’t be the one telling you not to.”

“You _married_ that spearwife and that guy who _stole her_ or whatever a month ago, I think we all know that,” Satin snorts. “Besides, some of us just want to do their jobs.”

“Fine, fine, I was just saying. I will be upstairs then.”

“Commander, we have it covered, go ahead.”

“Grenn, maybe _Satin and I_ have it covered.”

“You _wish_ ,” Grenn tells Pyp, and Theon leaves them to it – he has a feeling that those two don’t look for any ladies because they’ve shared a room since he was here and he’s been told there’s just one bed in it, but who is he to meddle with it? Especially when he’s the first breaking his vows, technically, but in this new age no one could care less and it’s not as if, as he’s been told, people didn’t break those vows in Mole’s Town regularly.

He goes back to his tower, then drags himself back upstairs until he reaches the Lord Commander’s bedroom – shit, he really needs a new maester to see if there’s _anything_ that can be done about his bloody feet – and then he knocks on the door before walking in.

“Long day?”

He shrugs as Jeyne rises from the chair she had been sewing in, a small smile on her lips and her chestnut hair falling untied over her shoulders.

“Try figuring out where to put two hundred people,” he groans, not protesting when she takes his arm and helps him to the bed. He already threw his cloak on a chair and he’ll be glad to leave it there until tomorrow. He kicks off his shoes – by now, around _her_ , he really can’t bother being self-conscious about the state of his feet.

She’s seen much worse, on him and outside.

“That many?”

“Another year and this place is going to be more crowded than fucking Braavos,” Theon says as he sits up on his – _their_ bed.

“And you’re _bleeding_. You forgot Sam’s ointment again, haven’t you?”

“I might have.”

She sighs, then goes to open the cupboard in front of the bed and takes it out. “Fine. I’m going to put it on you, even if it’s probably too late. Lay back.”

“My own fault,” Theon admits, and hisses as she runs her slippery fingers over his wounds – her face never betrays any kind of emotion when she does it, and he kind of envies her a bit for managing that (he never quite could look at his own wounds without grimacing. He’s gotten better at it lately, but he’s not there yet).

Damn, they _really_ need a maester, he decides when she declares the deed done and lets his feet rest on the bed.

“Try not to forget tomorrow, will you?”

“Maybe given how much it fucking hurts, I won’t.”

“Or is it just an excuse so that _I_ do it?”

He huffs, sitting up on the bed instead of leaning on his elbows. “Can you blame a man for wanting to enjoy the small pleasures life gives him?”

“Flatterer,” she laughs, and then she puts away the ointment and lies back down on the bed, propping herself up on her arm. He can see that she’s trying not to grin, though, and he thinks she looks good in her black clothes – she hasn’t worn a dress since they set foot here and she says she doesn’t miss it. Hells, the first time she joked about the attire matching the tiny part of her nose that will always be black because of frostbite he hadn’t even known what to do except that then she said, _I thought you’d react more warmly to your humor rubbing off on me_ and then he _had_ laughed, because what else was he even supposed to do?

“Is there _anything_ I should know?”

“How so?”

“I don’t know, you look… different? Not _badly_ , but –”

“Could be,” she says. “Well, there are actually two things you should know.”

“Very well. What?”

“I might have spent the day in Mole’s Town.”

“It’s – not any news?” She goes there often enough to get moon tea – she usually gets it for most of the women stationed at the Wall.

“It wasn’t for moon tea.”

“It… wasn’t?”

“The other thing you don’t know is that my moon blood hasn’t come this month.”

Her moon blood – _what_?

“And I was feeling a bit nauseous these last few weeks. And today I was craving _lemoncakes_ of all things. So, well, since we don’t have a maester here, and good thinking on getting one as soon as possible, I had to ask some people who’d have a clue.”

 _Oh._ He thinks he knows where this is going.

If it is –

“And what did they say?”

“That you might be the first Lord Commander to have _officially_ fathered children, should everything follow the right course.”

For a moment he’s completely taken aback – never mind the Lord Commander part of it, it’s the _fathering_ part of it that he hadn’t expected.

At all.

“Wait. You’re –”

“ _Yes_ , I’m with child.”

Thing is – she looks _radiant_ , and he can only imagine why. Ramsay never managed to _put an heir in her_ , as he used to say in his best wording, and neither of them has ever discussed it because it wasn’t a topic either of them was willing to breach and given how happy she looks right now but also how _surprised_ she is at saying it, he has a feeling she thought whatever happened during her wedding to that monster ruined her for it.

As far as _he_ was concerned, given that they’ve ran from Winterfell six years ago, kissed very tentatively for the first time _three_ years ago and it took them one year of trial and error to even share a bed properly, never mind that it took him even longer to share a bed with her _and_ use anything that wasn’t his hands and mouth to pleasure her – he just never even considered it. She’s always taken moon tea, but – right. The previous month it had been over and a snowstorm prevented them from going anywhere for a week or so, and they hadn’t cared because _now_ that they’ve mostly gotten over the trial and error part of their relationship, whatever it is, they tend to not waste too much time if they’re in the mood.

(It feels like a supreme fuck you to Ramsay, he has to admit. He told Jeyne once. She shrugged and agreed that it wasn’t _just_ that, but she also felt the same.)

And –

“Seven hells,” he breathes, not quite knowing what the _fuck_ he should say, but she’s elated and she’s grinning up at him and he can’t help grinning back, “guess I’ll go down in history as the person who definitely took _not fathering children_ off the Watch’s oath?”

She bursts out laughing, her head falling over his chest. “Maybe you should do it before everyone else finds out,” she manages to say, in between fits of laughter.

“Maybe I should,” he agrees, and waits for Jeyne to calm down while he ponders the entire thing and thinks again, _fuck but she’s just told me she’s going to have_ my _child and what do I even do about it_?

“Gods,” she says, sounding out of breath, “I couldn’t even believe it. When they told me it was pretty much assured.”

“Why, you think _I_ can believe it?”

“Shut up, there’s nothing wrong with _you_.”

“Seems like there’s nothing wrong with _you_ , either, is it?”

“Fine, there’s nothing wrong with either of us, and you really need to think on how to reword that oath.”

“I did worse things than _that_ ,” Theon snorts, “I’m sure most people here will back me up.”

He swallows and moves his left hand over her stomach – it’s not swollen, not yet anyway, even if maybe now that he _knows_ it feels a bit like it might be – and tries to not think of _everything this implies_.

“Hey,” she tells him, her hand covering his own a moment later, “is everything all right?”

“Of course it is,” he says. “It’s just – I never even considered it.”

“Neither did I,” she shrugs, “and there’s no one else I’d rather have to _consider it with_.”

“Then _I_ am the flatterer?”

“Shut up,” she laughs, and then her mouth is on his and his hands move to her hair, and he decides that she had a fairly sound idea, so he kisses her back and moves so that she’s on top of him and he has his back against the headboard. When she leans back and looks at him with eyes of a darker shade of brown than her usual, he looks back up at her and grins back – if she minds his silver teeth, she never mentioned it.

“I feel like you might want to celebrate, don’t you?” He asks.

“Being _with child_ doesn’t mean I can’t have needs, _Theon_.”

“I wasn’t _questioning_ that. Actually, I was fairly happy to hear that.”

He leans up and kisses her again, his hands going to the small of her back, her chest pressing up against his.

“Good. Because – I was thinking,” she says, “maybe we should pick a name.”

“Right _now_?”

“… Maybe not,” she agrees, and there’s no talking to be had for the immediate future.

\--

“About the names,” Jeyne tells him later, when both of them are under the covers and they had their dinner at the small table in the room and her hands are running over the whitened scars on his hip while his own fingers rest over the ghosts of bite marks on her arms, “maybe we should compromise.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“I could name them if it’s a girl. You could name them if it’s a boy.”

“Sounds fair,” he agrees, and then he thinks about it further.

He swallows.

“Do you know already?”

“What would I pick if it were a girl? Maybe I do,” she says, smiling ever so slightly. Theon would bet the Watch’s money that it’d be Sansa, but says nothing. “And _do you_?”

He shrugs, moving closer to her, his ankle hooking around hers. “You know I do.”

She smirks back. “Then we shall see in eight moons, I suppose.”

“I can’t wait,” he replies, and it’s true. He can’t wait. He presses his mouth to the crown of her hair, feeling her arm grab his waist a little more strongly than usual.

He kind of hopes it’s a boy.

If anything, because naming them after _him_ is the least Robb would have deserved.

But even if it’s not, patience – it’s already enough that they’re here and they’ve _done it_ in the first place, and if ten years ago you’d have told him he’d feel like bursting in happiness at receiving this kind of news while _commanding the damned Wall_ he’d have laughed and decided it was all horseshit, but ten years ago things were different, and even if there’s a lot he regrets of _how_ they came to be here –

He smiles ever so slightly and goes to sleep as Jeyne turns her back to his chest, his hand palms her stomach again and her own fingers interlace with his.

No, he doesn’t regret _this_ at all.

End.


End file.
